8 



LABORATORY MOUSE 



shaped coffins. Each year Lower Egypt thronged to the 

 riotous feast of Bubastis, and families went through a mourn- 

 ing ritual for their deceased cats similar to that 

 for human members of the household. Since 

 the cat embodied all godly virtue, the mouse 

 probably came to symbolize evil by contrast. 

 Indeed, it may be suggested that rats and 

 mice were probably responsible to a great de- 

 gree for the cat's deification, because the Nile 

 delta has been a grain-growing region since 

 prehistoric times, and was undoubtedly over- 

 run with these rodents before the advent of 

 the cat from Nubia. 



A glazed polychrome effigy of a white- 

 bellied agouti mouse made in Egypt 2000 

 B.C. is in the British Museum (see Fig. 2). 



A satyrical papyrus of the New Kingdom 

 (153) (written between 1580-1205 B.C.) bears 

 the picture of a rat or mouse (possibly Mus 

 cdexandrinus) in kingly robes, attended by Egyptian cats. 



Aelianus (c. a.d. 100) remarks that in Lower Egypt mice 

 develop from raindrops. St. Basil (a.d. 330-379) repeats the 

 story of pluvial generation of mice in Egypt, but adds grass- 

 hoppers and frogs as co-creations. 



Fig. 1. The Egyptian 

 Cat-goddess, Bubastis, 

 redrawn from Keller 

 after Perrot-Chipiez. 



Fig. 2. Polychrome pottery mouse from Egypt, c. <2000 B.C. 

 (In British Museum.) 



In Palestine. Moses received his cultural training in Egypt 

 and with it the traditional hatred for mice. This attitude 

 is exemplified among the commandments to the Hebrews 

 recorded in the Book of Leviticus: 



